Modified Guardian Shards worth it?

[Chaparral]

I have done the basic Guardian unlocks for all of the Guardian weapons, and used the Modified Guardian Plasma launchers in my last round of AX combat.

I found that I was fairly good at popping the scouts when needed with the Modified Plasma, and was reasonably successful with the interceptors.

My question is whether or not it is worth it to grind up a set of 4 Modified Shard Cannons to add to my arsenal.

I was relieved to see that the caustic Maelstrom wrecks all modules fairly and does not single out Guardian tech.

A final question is whether or not the current AX missiles make them a viable alternative to the current Guardian weapons.

Thanks in advance

 

[Esteban]

I believe that I saw a post yesterday touting the MGSC with numerous CMDRs in agreement. It's around here somewhere...

EDIT:
Oops, sorry- that was the salvation shard cannons...

If You're Going to Unlock Some Guardian Weapons for Bug Hunting, I Recommend Grabbing a Few Salvation Shard Cannons...

I'm seeing a few posts here and there about folks either not wanting to grind out the Guardian stuff (totally understandable - it can get mind numbing after a while :P), looking for some info on what Guardian weapons to pick, or are returning to a Bubble that is ON FIRE after an extended break...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[GraphiteGB]

I believe that I saw a post yesterday touting the MGSC with numerous CMDRs in agreement. It's around here somewhere...

EDIT:
Oops, sorry- that was the salvation shard cannons...

If You're Going to Unlock Some Guardian Weapons for Bug Hunting, I Recommend Grabbing a Few Salvation Shard Cannons...

I'm seeing a few posts here and there about folks either not wanting to grind out the Guardian stuff (totally understandable - it can get mind numbing after a while :P), looking for some info on what Guardian weapons to pick, or are returning to a Bubble that is ON FIRE after an extended break...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Salvation is the one who augmented them fdev tired to get it to stick as it has nothing to do with past human engineering levels...
but the user base refused to agree that he was not engineering them... Fdev has managed to get the wording "modified" to mean pre-engineered as it shorter and fits in title fields better...
Salvation built the modified guardian weapons there what he got built and surpasses what other humans could do... none of the "human" engineers can duplicate what salvation done...

 

[Chaparral]

Great advice thank you. Any thoughts on the current AX missiles?

 

[DemiserofD]

Great advice thank you. Any thoughts on the current AX missiles?

Mainly useful as a buff to the NPCs in the conflict zones. Interestingly however, two of them should now deal more damage per second than four ax multi cannons, so it could actually be reasonable now to carry a 50/50 split.

 

[Chaparral]

Mainly useful as a buff to the NPCs in the conflict zones. Interestingly however, two of them should now deal more damage per second than four ax multi cannons, so it could actually be reasonable now to carry a 50/50 split.

Still not competitive with the modified shards though right?

 

[DemiserofD]

Still not competitive with the modified shards though right?

Oh no, not by a long shot. The modified ax missiles will do about 10.5 DPS, versus about 17.6 for mod shards, and of course, modshards can actually damage hearts!

 

[space voyager]

Been thinking of jumping back into the game, but this thread is too long to read it all... Please, in a nutshell, what is the current recommendation for AX? Are Gausses still the best weapon available?

 

[CMDR The Riz]

Been thinking of jumping back into the game, but this thread is too long to read it all... Please, in a nutshell, what is the current recommendation for AX? Are Gausses still the best weapon available?

Maybe not the best depending on your preference with all of the Salvation / Pre-Engineered Guardian weapons available nowadays, but standard Gauss Cannons are still highly reliable bread-and-butter AX weapons and will serve you well in all AX situations.

 

[LordLocksley]

After some exchange on the thread that Cmdr Esteban linked above, I decided to try the Salvation Modified Shard Cannons (I've been using Gausses up until now).

The grind for Guardian Blueprints is a pain, but in the end, Modified Shards are fun. I won't say they are "better" than gausses, but it's a nice change of pace. The lower Armor Piercing stat and spread fire is not an issue on smaller Interceptors (Cyclops and Basilisk), but it shows on the bigger ones.

Basically they are a much more forgiving and friendly weapon than Gausses, as they have an area of impact so you dont need pinpoint accuracy when breaking hearts, and don't have the small ramp-up time of gausses, so aiming is easier.

But you will probably still do better if you are good at aiming with Gausses, especially on higher tier Interceptors.

As a bonus, Modified Shard Cannons are Scout murderers, so they are good for mixed scenarios.

 

[Mersozz]

So this is the baby we are talking about, right????

 

[Val Sylvana]

I'm not very good with fixed weapons, but in the small amount of AX combat I've done, I seemed to have more luck with the modified shard cannons than gauss cannons. You do have to get up close and personal, though.

 

[CMDR The Riz]

So this is the baby we are talking about, right????


View attachment 336515

Yes

 

[Kayvan]

As it happens, I wrote up the effective damage vs various types of interceptor just today:

Weapon	Class	Piercing	Raw SDPS	Eff vs Cyclops	Eff vs Basilisk	Eff vs Medusa	Eff vs Hydra
Gauss	1	140	19.7	19.7	19.7	16.2	12
Salvation Plasma	1	89	14.6	12.9	9.2	7.6	5.7
Salvation Shard	1	61	29.5	17.8	12.85	10.4	7.7
Gauss	2	140	34.5	34.5	34.5	28.4	21
Salvation Plasma	2	110	24.4	24.4	19.2	15.8	11.7
Salvation Shard	2	91	55	50	35.8	29.1	21.5

Hope you find this useful.

 

[Mersozz]

As it happens, I wrote up the effective damage vs various types of interceptor just today:

Weapon	Class	Piercing	Raw SDPS	Eff vs Cyclops	Eff vs Basilisk	Eff vs Medusa	Eff vs Hydra
Gauss	1	140	19.7	19.7	19.7	16.2	12
Salvation Plasma	1	89	14.6	12.9	9.2	7.6	5.7
Salvation Shard	1	61	29.5	17.8	12.85	10.4	7.7
Gauss	2	140	34.5	34.5	34.5	28.4	21
Salvation Plasma	2	110	24.4	24.4	19.2	15.8	11.7
Salvation Shard	2	91	55	50	35.8	29.1	21.5

Hope you find this useful.

Thanks for posting this chart, and for the effort behind compiling this data!

Question: Do you know what the comparative difference is between the "regular" Guardian Shard Cannon? and the Modified Shard Cannons?

It appears the "regular" Shard Cannons require more Materials required to unlock, but once it's unlocked you can buy mutliple weapons.

The modified shards require less materials for the initial buy, but you only get a single weapon buy for the Materials Required; in other words, they are not permanently unlocked.

Is there a distinct performance advantage of one versus the other???

Any wisdom you can drop on me would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[GraphiteGB]

Theres more to each salvation augmented weapon builds than what damage they do... thats only part of it...
Theres ease of use and how hard they are not to hit on target to start with... salvations version are way way way easier to use due to ...

Drum roll

Projectile speed being a massive massive increase...
Due to the increase added with salvations God mode augmentations that do not follow Human engineering rules, Salvation weapons are nearly hit scan... plasmas are not the slow crawl to target projectiles... they are near enough absolute damage rail guns... salvations god mode overcharged the weapons and massively boosted the projectile speed
Over 6KM per second travel speed... faster projectile speed the harder for a target to jink out the way...

Console users are able to use them to gank cyclops in wings very easy... wings using these salvation weapons will just crush a cyclops time after time..

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUGhO5S9xpY&t=187s

 

[Mersozz]

Theres more to each salvation augmented weapon builds than what damage they do... thats only part of it...
Theres ease of use and how hard they are not to hit on target to start with... salvations version are way way way easier to use due to ...

Drum roll

Projectile speed being a massive massive increase...
Due to the increase added with salvations God mode augmentations that do not follow Human engineering rules, Salvation weapons are nearly hit scan... plasmas are not the slow crawl to target projectiles... they are near enough absolute damage rail guns... salvations god mode overcharged the weapons and massively boosted the projectile speed
Over 6KM per second travel speed... faster projectile speed the harder for a target to jink out the way...

Console users are able to use them to gank cyclops in wings very easy... wings using these salvation weapons will just crush a cyclops time after time..

Thanks for the info! I tried the “ModShards” and was very impressed.

 

[GraphiteGB]

Thanks for the info! I tried the “ModShards” and was very impressed.

Shame about the 8KM salvation shot gun being blocked from tech broker. I wanted another one only got one from the CG...

 

[Jack Winter]

I think I missed this one, some details please?

 

[GraphiteGB]

I think I missed this one, some details please?

Once upon a time in a mega ship long destroyed...
When salvation was playing with his god mode given augmentation powers he went over kill and gave this version away in a CG...

COMPLETED CG - Salvation’s Appeal for Guardian Artefacts

Summary System: PMD2009 48 Station: Glorious Prospect (Megaship, large pads available, 1,629 Ls from main star, 1,299.53 Ly from Sol) Objective: Deliver Guardian caskets, orbs, relics, tablets, totems and urn Time limit: 1st July 3307 @ 06:00 UTC Description Aegis Research and Taurus Mining...

forums.frontier.co.uk

AX groups got it banned from being released again....
The end...